Kohli Advocates ‘Sustained Momentum’

‘Best for me to bat at No. 3’ – Kohli

The search to find the best combination had India shuffling Virat Kohli down the order in the lead-up to the World Cup, but that ploy appears to have run its course.

“I’ve played enough number of games to try and experiment [with my] batting position for the team to be in the best combination possible,” he said, “But we figured out that it’s best for me to bat at No. 3 which I’ve done over the last few years, and we have got success because me or one of the top three batsmen has been able to bat through.

Kohli was used at No. 4 on three occasions during the recent one-day series with Australia and England and tallied only 15 runs, but he was quick to defend the move despite the results.

“We were trying to figure out the best combination for the team. People really need to have some patience with something that we try to do. We do a few experiments, and if they don’t pay off, it’s regarded as something which is going to be our downfall. We don’t think like that.

“Unless you try, you would never know if you’re right or wrong. You make mistakes and you have to learn from them, and that was one situation where we wanted to try things out, and we could not have done it at any time apart from the tri-series, and yeah, that was the main plan behind it.”

MS Dhoni made 19 off 31 deliveries at No. 6 and later said he had to be more watchful than usual in the absence of Ravindra Jadeja’s hitting ability down the order. Having recovered from a shoulder injury, Jadeja is available now, but was out for 3 off 5 in the 49th over in the Pakistan game. He was second in the nets after Shikhar Dhawan on Friday at Junction Oval for a long batting stint. R Ashwin also struck some powerful punches, as India sought to get their lower-order in good batting shape.

Dhoni has also said that teams are resorting to bowling back of a length in the tournament and challenging batsmen with the buffer of longer boundaries. In the lead-up to this game, India have practiced with a focus on that length.

India were able to touch the 300-mark against Pakistan despite the late collapse because of the platform the top order had given them, although they looked good for 330 at one stage. Their opponents then started steadily, but crumbled under the pressure of a tall chase in an India-Pakistan match. There will be no such pressure on the South Africans. Not only does that make it important for India’s batsmen to finish better than they did against Pakistan, it also calls on the top order to set up the game again.

Which is where the size of the MCG outfield factors in again. The square boundaries are especially long, unlike Adelaide Oval. India’s top-order batsmen love to play their cover drives and square cuts and back-foot punches. Those strokes come naturally to them and are used as reliable methods to collect runs, especially under fielding restrictions against the new balls. On other venues, once you clear the infield with decent timing, you do not have to bother running. Such strokes might bring only two, or three at best, at the MCG. Doing that against Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander regularly will be still harder.

Kohli was clear that the India batsmen would have to adapt on Sunday, drawing on their experience of having played at the MCG as recently as January. “You have to hit angles, you have to hit gaps, you have to run hard, and you have to place the ball more than power the ball over the boundary. It will be a calculated approach towards our batting, and we’ll have to make some changes according to how big the field is. All the guys have played on this ground, and I’m sure they are thinking about it.”